Tag Archives: driving alone with baby

“Fun to be seen driving” are the words used by TopGear to describe the VW Beetle. Having driven one for the best part of two and a half years, I would add that indeed, it is possibly more fun to be seen driving a Beetle than it is in fact driving a Beetle. Not that I didn’t love every minute of being said driver of my particularly iridescent sapphire specimen.

I bought my Beetle in the summer of 2012 as my ultimate, single girl-about-town classy set of wheels, despite being a) not actually single and b) far too terrified to actually drive it anywhere about my town – being London at the time – except out, via the south circular, to work. But man, did I love being the girl driving the Beetle. Pedestrians would stare enviously (or so I choose to interpret) as they hastily retracted their toes from the zebra crossing, other Beetle owners waved, and car washers would chuckle and mock the little fake flower in the test tube vase next to the steering wheel.

Around six months after I bought my Beetle, I got pregnant. Approximately seven and a half months later, upon receiving ownership of a fairly standard-sized travel system pushchair, I discovered just how incompatible this car is with family life. Even without a seat, the frame simply did not fit in the bloody boot. I had to take the two back wheels off. Every. Single. Time. If that wasn’t enough, I of course had gone for the three door, four seat version in a pique of I’m-only-25-I’m-not-even-thinking-of-having-kids-yet logic. This made getting baby + car seat in and out PARTICULARLY FUN. I’m not even going to talk about the beige interior. Suffice to say it doesn’t meld well with babies, or any of the items said creatures ingest and… yeah.

It was also around this time – being the summer of 2013 – that I realised my most heinous oversight at the time of purchase. The car did not have air conditioning. Yes, it had heated seats and a standard heating system which made it a particularly cosy drive in the winter, and I hadn’t really noticed the lack of AC too much the summer before, when I’d been a svelte size 8-10 with thighs that didn’t rub together and was still in Beetle honeymoon period. But, two stones bigger and with a new, 120mile round commute to and from work, the novelty of my Beetle ownership wore off around the time I heaved myself into the driver’s seat ahead of a two hour jaunt on the m25 and saw the car’s thermometer merrily reading 40 degrees.

The sweat just went everywhere.

Still, I muddled through and continued to enjoy the odd moments of pretending I was still that young, single girl-about-town as I motored down the A322, singing along to Rihanna on the iPod dock as the baby snoozed out of eye-line. Then, this Christmas, I picked my sister and her two kids up from the airport. They had one suitcase and a pushchair. Something most cars, even neat little hatchbacks, can handle without so much as a tailgate dip of protest. Not my bloody car. The suitcase would only go flat in the boot if I sat on it. The pushchair would not go anywhere except wedged in front of my sister in the front, with her passenger seat as far back as it would go (fortunately my second niece is tiny for her age. And I’m fairly sure her hip dysplasia was diagnosed before the subsequent 200 mile journey from airport to Devon.)

It was then I had my Roy Scheider moment. I was going to need a bigger car. Sure, I wasn’t going to get eaten by a shark if I didn’t, but having any more babies invoked images of driving along with the boot duck-taped half open over one buggy while I towed the other along behind me. Besides, I was sick of having to climb into the back seat – even with the time-perfected twist, stoop and pivot – every time I needed to get my increasingly large Lara in and out. The mileage was still decent, paintwork fairly spotless, age not bad and I had six months on the MOT.

You will be pleased to know that though I am silly enough to sacrifice any serious offers of purchase for cheap Facebook LOLs by posting a light-hearted advert including the word sh!t in the description, I’m not quite so stupid that I would make this blog post live before keys changed hands. Therefore, I am happy to announce that the Beetle has gone *pang* and I am now the proud owner of its much more sensible, much more bigger brother, the VW Tiguan. The drive is noisier, the diesel more expensive and I am now one of those SUV mums, but the other day I managed to get BOTH buggies and a suitcase into the boot without obstructing any vision out the back window. I guess that girl about town grew up. And got really boring.

*Good, here, meaning stays on the road more often than not, inoffensive unless provoked (or singing) and certainly never ever guilty of taking funny photos at inappropriate and unsafe moments.

Some of the things which befall me (and, it is my eternal hope, others too) when I take my bimblings to the highways of Britain:

Every Spring, without fail, you celebrate the first warm day of the year by rolling your window down – which you then promptly forget about around the time you roll to a stop at the traffic lights in a crowded town centre and wile away the time singing loudly along to the radio/ commenting on how badly dressed/ fat the pedestrians are.

You’re driving along, a car approaches in the opposite direction, but between you there is a vehicle parked half-on, half-off the pavement. No matter how much you try to brake or accelerate you both end up reaching the parked vehicle at exactly the same moment and have to do an awkward, three car squeeze-by while driving to avoid one another’s gaze.

When driving with a small child/baby in the car it is unacceptable for any other drivers to beep at you for any hesitations or accidental gear changes/sudden brakings. However, if they do, it is perfectly reasonable for you to reply “I’VE GOT A GODDAMN BABY IN THE CAR, SHOW SOME F*CKING RESPECT!” with the appropriate accompanying hand gestures.

When in Devon, motorists must leave extra early due to the increased risk that at some stage of the journey the road will be rendered impassable due to livestock/ geese/ pillocks from the city.

There are days when you simply forget that green means go.

No driving scenario is more awkward than a three-way mini roundabout. Who goes first? Is he going to go? Shall I go? Oh god now we’ve all started forward and braked sharply. F*ck it, I’m just going to go – maybe if I go REALLY FAST it will be like I was never here and this never happened.

On that note, when did it become ok for drivers to stop F*CKING INDICATING at roundabouts?

If you make a mistake, ie, misjudge the exit someone is going for at a roundabout (probably because they didn’t F*CKING INDICATE) and cut them up, it becomes absolutely necessary to speed as fast away from the scene of the misdemeanour as possible.

If, when driving alone, you think of a brilliantly witty comeback/joke/saying, it is perfectly acceptable to then say whatever it is out loud, just in case someone has hidden a microphone somewhere in your car and is listening to everything you say.

The rear-view baby mirror probably makes me a worse driver, but it’s worth it to watch some of the appalled faces she pulls when I sing.

I have it on good authority that until your child is old enough to ask what a Rude Boy is, it’s perfectly acceptable to sing along to Rihanna while they’re in the car.

You try to be nice and let the person at the junction turn into the road in front of you, but they JUST AREN’T GETTING IT so you end up speeding away in frustration, while they just gaze at you in bewilderment.

Alternatively, that nice person who has right of way flashes at you to go in front of them, but you find yourself in the wrong gear/ surging forward too eagerly and rolling to an embarrassing stall halfway across the carriageway.

Set your Sat Nav voice to American and then approach a roundabout.

Woe betide the London driver who hesitates for a nanosecond after the traffic lights go green.